November 20 2012

4:08 PM

Apart from the second stage of q-school, there was no golf on
the PGA TOUR last week. Consequently, there were no immediate
lessons we could learn from watching the world’s best
players.

Immelman

So, for my weekly installment of “On the Mark,” I
decided to post an excerpt from an upcoming iBook we have slated
for release. The book is called “Hitting the Driver with
Power and Accuracy,” and it includes tips and ideas on how to
hit a club that defines the games of a number of players on the PGA
TOUR.

Let’s address a couple of principles that will help to
garner a bit more power and control of this vexing and intriguing
golf club:

Principle No. 1: Keep your head still -- like a
putt.

Your first task in your journey toward hitting the driver longer
and straighter is to realize that the driver’s properties are
not too dissimilar to those of your putter. To clarify, the driver,
like the putter, has a straight leading edge, and the ball is going
to be launched at right angles to that leading edge at impact. To
take this thought a bit further: I am sure that you’ve heard
of keeping your body (and head) still when you putt? Have you ever
wondered why that is? Well, that principle is to ensure a better
chance of presenting the putter face squarely to the ball and at
right angles to the target line.

So, in plain terms, the interaction between the driver and ball
as they collide at impact are the same as the interaction between
putter face and ball. The only difference really is that the driver
is travelling at vastly higher speeds than the putter. So with all
of that being said, if you want to hole a short putt, you need to
keep stable so you can make an accurate stroke and square contact.
Therefore, by way of comparison, it would seem logical that you
would need to do the same things if you wish to hit the driver
consistently and accurately.

To summarize, correct, powerful contact with the ball is the
product of a dynamic, yet stable body action and the correct
delivery of the arms and club through the hitting zone.

Principle No. 2: Accelerate in a balanced
fashion.

Too often, in a miss-appropriated and vain attempt to hit the
ball a long distance, the golfer will accelerate his/her body too
early in the downswing, resulting in major timing issues. It also
leads to a severe loss in power. The power loss occurs because the
early hyper-acceleration of the body (most often the pivot of the
shoulders) throws the arms and hence the club off-plane and
off-line and from that situation the golfer is reduced to having to
make all manner of compensations to get the club onto the back of
the ball -- none of which are in fact very beneficial.

The correct amount of acceleration at the correct time will
certainly enhance one’s ability to make a square and accurate
strike on the golf ball.

To summarize: A good swing (in this example, we can imagine a
pendulum) exhibits a gradual acceleration from the top of its arc
en route to its terminal velocity at the base of the arc. It is
followed by a gradual deceleration en route to the opposite top of
its arc, so the golf swing should exhibit this rhythm, speed and
cadence.

Mark Immelman, the brother of PGA TOUR professional Trevor
Immelman, is a well-respected golf instructor and head coach of
the Columbus State University (Ga.) golf team. For more
information about Mark and his instruction, visit his web site,
markimmelman.com or follow him on Twitter @mark_immelman or
“Like” Mark Immelman Golf Instruction on Facebook. He
also has a golf instruction e-book called “Consistently
Straight Shots – The Simple Solution” available on
iTunes/iBooks.